Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Currently Playing: Foreigner – Cold As Ice

Tony Mineo watched his only daughter gunned down on her wedding day. All he has left of her is the ice sculpture that was to be the centrepiece of her reception. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

======

“My princess, my little girl.”

Behind Tony, three of his men shivered near the door of the walk-in freezer. Tony, in his bloodstained tuxedo, didn’t seem to notice the cold.

“Tony, Tony, the cops,” one of the men, Leo, interrupted gently. “I’m sorry, we can’t keep them out there forever. You got to come talk to them.”

“My little girl,” Tony said.

Outside, in the industrial kitchen, stacks of uneaten appetisers lined two of the benches. The prep work for hundreds of meals sat ready at its stations, seafood turning warm, lettuce wilting. A towering wedding cake waited on a trolley, virginial, untouched, for a first cut that was never coming. Beyond the kitchen, in the function room, over a dozen tables were covered in centrepieces and table settings before the long bridal table. More of Tony’s men negotiated with the detectives in the corridor outside the function hall to keep them from storming the place.

“Look at her, look at how beautiful she was.” Tony gestured, dried blood covering his hand.

“Uh, yeah, Tony, yeah. She was beautiful, I’m real sorry,” Leo said.

The ice sculpture loomed over the four of them like an effigy of the Virgin Mary, head almost brushing the ceiling. Carved at true to life proportions, the sculpture of Tony’s daughter sat atop a waist-high platform in the centre of the large freezer. She was to be the centrepiece of the wedding reception that would now never happen, bordered by towers of champagne flutes and trays of seafood and hors d’oeuvres. Her face was undeniably beautiful, captured in a calm, beatific expression with lowered eyes and a Mona Lisa smile, framed by loosely falling curls, all faintly translucent. The folds of material on her dress and sleeves looked soft and almost real. The skill of the sculptor who’d carved her from a single, solid block was undeniable. Her hands were outstretched, palms forward, as if offering or calmly beseeching.

“Alright,” Tony said. “Alright, let’s go.”

Leo and the others followed their boss out of the freezer, through the kitchen and function hall. Outside, the cops stiffened as he approached. The lead detectives were a man and a woman, both in cheap suits, backed by a pair of uniformed officers. They looked up and down at Tony’s bloody tux and hands but didn’t comment. Tony was a big man, half a head taller than most of his men, powerfully built, but his face looked haggard and he carried himself, for the moment, as if he was about to fall apart.

“Mr Mineo, my condolences, we’re very sorry to hear about what happened,” the male detective said.

“I’ll bet you are,” Tony spat.

“I’m Detective Bower, this is my partner, Detective Carrington.”

“Condolences,” the woman said with less sincerity.

“We can do this down at the station, if you’d prefer. You can call your lawyer, but we need to get your statement.”

“I didn’t see nothing,” Tony said.

“You were outside the church at the time?”

“I was too busy looking at my daughter. It was a happy day, everyone was cheering, throwing flower petals. You know they don’t throw rice anymore? That’s what my daughter said. No rice because the birds eat it and it’s no good for them, no confetti because it’s littering, she wanted flower petals. Anything she wanted, she got it. I was watching her and that lucky son of a bitch, my son-in-law, I suppose, I was watching them coming down the steps and we were all cheering and then it was like fireworks. Yeah, yeah, I know what gunshots sound like, but I guess my mind was somewhere else, so I thought fireworks, celebration, and then I saw her falling.”

“You didn’t see the car or its occupants?” Carrington asked. “We’ve got some conflicting reports on the make, the colour, even the number of gunmen.”

“I didn’t see nothing, I told you! I was looking at her, she was so beautiful, and then two of my associates knocked me down and wouldn’t let me back up until it was over.”

“Four people dead, including your daughter and son-in-law, eight others injured, and you didn’t see anything?”

Tony flushed and his knotted fists, hanging at his sides, bunched. His first instinct wasn’t usually to be honest with cops but in this case everything he said was the truth. He was too stunned, too despondent, to come up with any lies.

“What do you want me to say? I’m telling the fucking truth, I didn’t see nothing! Except for her, falling.”

After the initial burst of gunfire, Leo and another man tackled Tony to the steps. Others pulled handguns from their wedding suits and fired back at the car full of shooters, winging at least one of them as they sped off. When they’d let him up, Tony had crawled on his hands and knees to his daughter. Behind him, his wife, her mother, started wailing. Red pools bloomed through the white lace. He’d scooped her into his arms and tried to staunch the bleeding, tried to push it back into her body, but there was nothing anyone could do.

“Do you think you might have been the intended target?” Detective Bower asked, and a couple of Tony’s men scoffed.

“No shit!” Tony exploded. “What the fuck do you think?”

“So you have some idea of who might be behind this then? What their motivation might have been?” Carrington cut in.

Tony saw his misstep and hurriedly tried to reel it back. “I mean, who the fuck would want to kill her? She was beautiful. She never hurt anyone. And the kid, her boyfriend, he wasn’t-, he was from a good family. Obviously it was meant for me.”

“This was clearly meant to send a message,” Bower said. “You admit you have enemies, who do you think would be willing to do this? On your daughter’s wedding day, do you know who would go that far?”

Something closed behind Tony’s eyes. “No.”

“No, what does that mean? No?”

“It means no, I don’t know. I don’t know who hates me that much.”

“Mr Mineo, we’ll be in touch,” Detective Bower said. “But I wanted to say, you need to let us do our jobs here. We will keep you informed but if we find out you or your men are, let’s say, involved in your own investigations, they will be arrested for interfering with the law. It will not be tolerated.”

Tony said nothing. The detectives and uniformed officers turned and left, Carrington and the uniforms shooting a couple of contemptuous looks at Tony and his men. The boss remained where he was, unblinking, until they were gone and out of earshot, and then turned to Leo.

“Find them,” Tony said.

“Of course, boss, of course,” Leo said. “I’ve already got guys on it.”

“I don’t care who you need to hurt, I don’t care who you need to kill! I don’t care how much you have to pay, find them. One of them was hit, right? They’ll need a doctor, someone in the game, they can’t just go to a hospital. Find them and bring them here.”

“Here, boss?”

“Here, the club, I own it, don’t I? Shut it down, cancel everything until this is over. I want them here!”

“You’ve got it, boss.”

“Leave me.”

Shoulders slumped, Tony headed back the way they had come. Alone, he returned through the kitchen to the walk-in freezer and the ice sculpture of his precious daughter.

xXx

Four young men were brought, bound and screaming and fighting, from a van at the back of the club. Decorations still hung from the ceiling as they were dragged through the massive function hall, and place settings adorned the tables. Even the rotting flowers were left behind, dropping petals on the tablecloths and carpet. One of the men lashed out, kicking, and knocked several glasses off one of the tables. Nine of Tony’s men crowded the four captives, led by a man named Bobby Accardi. Tony’s right hand man, Leo, met them at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Where does he want them?” Accardi asked.

“The freezer,” Leo said.

“He’s back there again?”

Leo shrugged. The four men were wrestled through the kitchen. The food for the wedding had been thrown in the trash, disposed of, but dirty trays and plates and containers were piled in the dishpit.

Tony had exchanged his wedding tuxedo for snow pants and an orange parka. Gloves covered both hands but his face was rosy and lips dry from spending so much time with the ice sculpture. It loomed in the centre of the room, cold and dimly lit. The rest of the freezer had been cleaned out except for some metal shelving bolted to the walls. It became crowded, however, as Leo, Accardi, and several other men pulled the captives inside.

“Shut the door!” Tony said. “Shut the door, you’re letting the cold out!”

The four gunmen were forced to their knees on the icy floor and the door clapped closed behind them. Unlike Tony and the others, they wore only underwear. A couple of them started to shiver as tears and snot dripped down their faces. Bruises and contusions covered their bodies. One of the four wore bandages around his upper right arm from the bullet he’d taken during the wedding shootout but the material was old and dirty and stained with dried blood.

“These are them?” Tony asked.

“They’re the ones who pulled the triggers,” Accardi said.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” one of the young men exploded. “We didn’t-, we didn’t know!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Accardi said.

“Who gave the order?” Tony said.

“It was the Giordani Family,” Leo said. “The boss’ son, Anthony Giordani. My guess is he wanted to impress the old man or something. The kid’s a psycho, wanted to send a message.”

“Is that right?”

“I’m sorry!” the shivering captive repeated.

“Fuck you!” another shouted, and he spat a ribbon of bloody drool at Tony’s feet.

“Look at her!” Tony roared, pointing at the sculpture. “Look at what you did! She was beautiful, beautiful! A virgin bride on her wedding day! Beautiful, perfect, and you killed her!”

The four young men looked up at the ice sculpture in confusion. Leo, Accardi, and the other men averted their eyes.

“What do you, uh, want us to do with them?” Accardi asked.

“Kill them,” Tony said.

“Here?”

“Right here, I want her face to be the last thing they see.”

“No, no, please!” one of the men begged.

“I’m sorry!”

The young gunmen struggled as Tony’s men pulled pistols and pressed the muzzles to the backs of their heads. Shooting them execution-style would be dangerous though, they realised, the room encased in metal and concrete. Accardi took the gun from one man and pushed the barrel straight down against the crown of his captive’s head. He fired, the bark of it echoing through the freezer. The bullet drilled vertically through the boy’s skull, tunnelling down through his neck and losing momentum as it wedged somewhere in his chest. The boy convulsed, eyes rolling back in his head as if looking for the bullet, before he dropped to the cold, cold floor.

The others screamed and tried to squirm free. Following Accardi’s example, the rest of Tony’s men did the same and fired straight down through their captives’ skulls. Tony watched, his eyes going from the young men to the sculpture of his daughter as if looking for a reaction. One of the men misaimed and instead of traveling straight down through the body, his bullet ripped through the side of his victim’s throat. It ricocheted off the ground between the boy’s legs then, luckily, buried itself in the meat of his thigh.

“Careful!” Leo jumped backward. “Jesus!”

The bodies dropped, visions of the dimly lit ice sculpture reflected in their eyes. Blood gouted from the gaping hole in the side of the botched victim’s throat. It popped and crackled as it sheeted across the icy floor. Gore dripped from the craters in the tops of all four gunmen’s heads.

“Get them out of here,” Tony said.

The four bodies were dragged out of the room. The blood and gore they left behind steamed. Leo remained, rubbing his hands together in the cold.

“What do you want to do now, boss?” Leo asked.

“Anthony Giordani, bring him to me. Bring him here,” Tony said.

“Boss, the Giordanis, they’re not going to give him up. I mean, unsanctioned or not, his old man-,”

“Bring him to us!”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll get some cleaners in here, some bleach-,”

“No, no bleach, nothing that could harm her.” Tony looked to the sculpture.

“Boss, if the cops figure out we brought them here, if they get a warrant-,”

“I said no! Leave it, and leave us.”

Leo stepped over the quickly cooling puddles of gore and slipped out of the freezer, closing it carefully behind him. Tony’s attention returned to the ice sculpture.

“You looked just like your mother on our wedding day.” Tony’s fingers traced the side of his daughter’s jaw. “So innocent, my beautiful girl.”

xXx

It wasn’t easy but they got their hands on Anthony Giordani the Younger. Police were no closer to finding leads on the killings after Tony’s men disappeared the gunmen. The Giordanis were expecting reprisals but Anthony was arrogant enough to think he could keep showing his face in public, drinking and clubbing and screwing, without consequences.

Accardi and several of Tony’s men dragged Anthony Giordani through the function hall. He fought and kicked and screamed like his hired guns had done, knocking over decorations, all the way through the hall and the kitchen.

“My dad will kill you for this!” Giordani the Younger said. “You’re dead! You’re dead, and you’re dead, motherfuckers!”

Tony met them in the same place as last time, the walk-in freezer. He’d been spending hours there every single day. The club remained closed so no one was allowed to come or go except for Tony and his men. A sheet of frozen blood covered the floor. Tony wore his snow pants and parka, and gloves, his face chapped and pale. Leo shrugged on a black winter jacket before stepping inside. Accardi and two more men piled Giordani into the freezer and forced him to his knees.

“Tony Mineo, you stupid piece of shit,” Giordani said. “You know what you’ve done?”

“What I’ve done? Do you know what you’ve done, you arrogant little fuck?” Tony said.

A bruise spread along Giordani’s jawline but otherwise he hadn’t been touched. The men had brought him straight to Tony as soon as he was snatched. He glared at Tony with pupils like pin pricks, none of the arrogance beaten out of him. Tony pointed back at the sculpture.

“Look at her! Look at what you took from me!”

“Fucking dumb slut, shouldn’t have gotten in the way of the bullets,” Giordani said.

With an animal roar, Tony dropped onto the younger man. Giordani’s hands were bound behind his back and he could do nothing to protect himself. Tony’s meaty fists cleaved into his face. Bellows of pain and defiance and the sounds of the impacts bounced around the freezer. Giordani’s nose crunched and he gagged as blood hit the back of his throat. With a crack, one of his orbital sockets broke and the eye bulged.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, stop! Stop!” Giordani choked.

Giordani thrashed but Tony’s men pinned him on his knees. As Tony’s rage dragged on and on they exchanged looks with one another. The beatific face of the ice sculpture beamed down on all of them.

“She was pure! She was pure, beautiful!” Tony said. “I should have never let her marry that little shit. She was mine and you took her!”

“My father, my father will fucking kill you,” Giordani croaked.

Wrapping his big hands around the younger man’s throat, Tony forced him to the floor. As he fell on top of him, he dropped a knee into Giordani’s chest. Ribs snapped and the air in his lungs exploded out of him before Tony’s powerful grip closed the passage. Thrashing on top of his bound arms, his face flushed. The eye in his broken socket swelled as if about to pop out.

“Tony, he’s right,” Leo said. “Throwing the kid a beating is one thing but if you kill him, his old man has more men, more guns.”

“He took her from me,” Tony spat every word.

None of the men dared intervene. Tony’s gloved hands crushed Giordani’s windpipe. Gurgling and choking, he suffocated on the icy floor. Tony wrung his throat again and again, driving the back of his skull into the ground until he was most definitely dead.

“Get rid of this fucking trash,” Tony said as he climbed off the body.

Tony’s men dragged Giordani the Younger out of the freezer. Tony was left alone with the ice sculpture of his daughter. He reached up to touch her face but he could hardly feel anything through the glove. Removing it, he molded his hand to her cold, cold features.

“No one’s going to hurt you again, my little princess,” Tony said. “My little woman, I took care of it. I won’t let them hurt you again.”

xXx

The Mineo Family withdrew to the club for protection. The boss, Tony, refused to leave and it was probably as easy to secure as anywhere else. Two dozen captains and soldiers roamed the ground, keeping watch and sleeping in shifts. The Giordanis were coming after the death of their boss’ son, it was only a matter of when. Bobby Accardi and Leo took up positions in the front hall.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Accardi said.

“You know what we’re doing, we’re waiting,” Leo said, and his hand brushed the hilt of the pistol in his shoulder holster.

“I mean, he’s lost it, right? The boss has fucking lost it. After what happened he was entitled to blood but he’s not even giving orders anymore! He spends all his time talking to a fucking ice cube!”

“So, what do we do?”

Accardi lowered his voice. “He’s got to go! You and me together? The guys will listen to us. We hand him over to the Giordanis and it’s done. It’s done.”

Before Leo could reply, a gunshot fractured one of the panels in the nearest door. Socked in the chest, Accardi stumbled backward. A red stain appeared on his shirt as his mouth fell open. The first shot was followed by a burst on full automatic. The glass doors splintered. Accardi fell backward, his chest shredded, and Leo dived to the side. Hand over hand, he crawled toward the function room.

Streamers and decorations and place settings remained in place for the wedding reception that never happened. Leo scrambled to his feet and pulled his gun. From elsewhere in the building, he heard more gunfire and men screaming. The Giordanis were hitting them from all sides at once. He ran for the kitchen and the walk-in freezer.

“Boss, boss, it’s happening! The Giordanis are here!”

Tony waved him off. “Shut the door, you’ll let the cold out.”

“Boss, didn’t you hear me? The Giordanis!”

“I said shut the fucking door!”

Stunned, Leo backed away. He felt the pistol in his hand and thought about what Accardi had said. Maybe if he killed Tony and brought them his body, maybe the rest of them would be spared. Rather than act on it, however, he slapped the door closed and went to join their men.

In the freezer, Tony turned back on the sculpture. Scales of frost had gathered on his daughter’s dress and face but she still beamed down on him. Removing his gloves, he reached for her.

“My beautiful girl, we might not have much more time,” Tony said. “We never had enough time. You grew up, look at you. You grew from a little girl into a beautiful woman.”

Tony’s hands wrapped her frozen face. He considered the icy features and leaned closer.

“A woman, but a pure one. You remind me of your mother on our wedding day, before she started to hate me. Before she became old and fat and fucking bitter. My little girl, I should have never let you go. I should never have let anyone else have you.”

Tony climbed onto the plinth of the sculpture itself. From there, he could wrap his arms around the hard angles of the sculpture and kiss it gently on its frozen lips.

“My girl, my little girl, my beautiful girl.” Tony reached for the zipper of his jacket. “I should have never let you go. You were mine, you should have always been mine.”

The Giordanis accepted no surrender. They had to move fast before the cops arrived. With ruthless efficiency, they mowed down all resistance. Before they could move inside and sweep the building for Tony Mineo, however, sirens and flashing lights drove them away. Tony wouldn’t last long with all of his men dead, they decided. Next time, he would be theirs.

SWAT and uniformed officers arrived in force but moved inside with caution. They met no resistance but found plenty of bodies. Bobby Accardi lay dead in the front hallway. Leo and a dozen others were scattered throughout the back rooms while several more were found on the outskirts of the grounds, throats slit.

Only once they felt secure did the police sweep the building in its entirety. Moving through the function hall and the kitchen, several officers checked every corner before committing themselves. They almost missed the door to the walk-in freezer, however. Tearing it open, they scanned the interior and recoiled.

“Uh, someone-, we should, uh, call this in,” one of them finally managed.

Naked, Tony Mineo wrapped around the ice sculpture with his face buried in the crook of its throat and arms around its shoulders. His crotch and paunch pressed into its hip. His flesh, in the dim light, looked as cold and hard as marble. The two of them impossible to pry apart.

======

Sean: Obviously when you first start out writing, there’s a question of what it is you’re going to write. I’ve always read more in the genres I write now, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Stephen King is definitely one of the writers that made me think, ‘Hey, I want to do this too.’ But the ideas weren’t quite there, so instead I was more interested initially in writing crime. And it wasn’t the kind of crime that wasn’t easily accessible in Australia at the time to be honest, our crime sections were, and still are, filled up with the likes of British detective stories. I was more interested in American-style stuff that tended to have more stories from the criminal’s point-of-view.

Wedding Bells & Shotgun Shells was the first novel I tried to write. Actually it’s an idea / cast of characters I’ve tried to revisit a couple of times since without real success. As you might guess the different iterations have involved a couple of bloody wedding shootouts, so I guess this story is a throwback to that! Actually, at least one version had a flashbang frozen inside an ice sculpture of the bride, I can’t remember which iteration that idea emerged in first.

Couple of other crime stories with a horror bent would be Swarm, from the first round of All There in the (Monster) Manual, and Hurting Hand. Both of those were a lot of fun!

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